The Jackson County District Courtroom has seen hundreds of cases within its walls. Every monthly criminal docket sees between 40 and 90 cases, some defendants being accused of more serious crimes than others.
Often, when a charge is serious enough, and receives a lot of public attention, one question is asked, over and over – What is taking so long? Why is a case reset month after month?
There are many reasons a case is delayed. Some are strategic. Others are process related. Some are related to the logistics of what it takes to put together a trial. Even under perfect conditions, a case can just take a while to wind its way through the system.
Assistant District Attorney Stephen Tyler said that typically, a major felony case – a murder, for example - from arrest to verdict, takes about 12 to 18 months. They can take longer, depending on the details and specific needs of both the state and the defense.
Here is how a case works its way from arrest to conviction.
In some cases, after an arrest, the next step is a grand jury indictment. This generally takes 30 to 60 days but can occasionally take up to 90. In other cases, indictment happens before an arrest, as the Grand Jury can be, as Tyler put it, “an investigative tool” to help complete the investigation and narrow down the suspect list.
“Then if the Grand Jury indicts, if [the suspect] has not already been arrested, two to five days after the Grand Jury indicts, the district clerk will issue a writ, which is a warrant,” said Tyler.
About 30 days after the grand jury indictment, the case goes to an arraignment docket. This will be the first time the case appears in front of the District Judge. An arraignment has a few purposes. The defendant will be read the charges, they will be appointed an attorney if they meet the criteria for indigency, or will be told to hire one. They may also enter a plea.
The case is very unlikely to be resolved at this point in the process. Arraignment is just the beginning of what could be a long road through the courts. Even defendants who will eventually plead guilty as part of a plea deal, will enter a not guilty plea at the beginning, to give their attorney time to set up a deal that works for both the state and the defendant.
30 to 90 days later, the defendant will be ordered to return to court. Plea negotiations can begin, motions can be filed, and other business can be taken care of.
A motion is, according to justice.gov, “an application made by the prosecutor or defense attorney, requesting the court make a decision on a certain issue before the trial begins.” Motions can be for things like suppressing certain evidence or excluding certain witnesses. They can be used to compel the opposing attorney to provide evidence in a process called discovery. They can be used to have the defendant evaluated for sanity or fitness to stand trial.
Once a motion is filed and ruled on by a judge, it can then take even more time for each side to abide by the decision. Evaluations require appointments and doctors. Discovery can take time, especially in cases with a lot of evidence.
This can repeat multiple times, with 30 to 90 days between dates.
Finally, if a case does not end in a plea bargain, and all motions are exhausted, it can go to trial. Most cases never see a trial setting. Plea bargains account for about 98 percent of cases in Texas, although Tyler said that Jackson County does go to trial more and hand out fewer pleas than other counties in the state.
“We are about 97 percent. It doesn’t seem like much, but it’s a world of difference,” said Tyler.
He also pointed out that going to trial requires a lot of moving parts to click together just right. For one thing, he said, there are only certain months in which they’re likely to be able to form a jury. Any months with major holidays, or mid-summer and other school breaks, are usually a no-go, because people are taking vacations or having family visit, making it difficult to put together a jury pool.
Jackson County is also a small community, with a small population, meaning that expert witnesses often have to come from out of town, and sometimes even out of state. Our District Judges oversee multiple counties and must schedule trials around their other dockets and responsibilities. Attorneys have other cases and schedules. Attorneys, judges, court reporters, clerks, and everyone else involved take vacations, sick leave, and other time off work. Scheduling a time when all those people can be in one place for a week or so is no easy task.
In the end, there are a lot of reasons a case might take a year or more to resolve, but Tyler said it isn’t usually because nobody is taking it seriously.
“The process is tedious,” he said. “But the process is relatively steady.”
